The invention relates to a diffraction-optical component for providing a radiation-diffracting grating structure, said grating structure being providable by surface waves on a surface of a substrate for diffracting and deflecting an incident beam of light. A wavelength of the light to be diffracted at the grating structure may first have any wavelength of the optical spectrum. In particular, the invention, however, relates a diffraction-optical component for providing a grating structure for diffracting light in the ultraviolet region, the extreme ultraviolet region (EUV) with wavelengths of about 0.1 nm to about 100 nm, as well as the X-ray region. Furthermore, the invention relates to an illumination system by means of which a beam of light, in particular, in the ultraviolet, extreme ultraviolet and X-ray wavelength regions, can be deflected and controlled. Moreover, the invention relates to an exposure system for imaging a pattern provided on a mask onto a substrate, a light beam used for the imaging being controllable by the diffraction-optical component and the pattern constituting, in particular, components of a miniaturized device. Moreover, the invention relates to an exposure method for manufacturing a miniaturized device in a photolithographic step.
In the manufacture of miniaturized devices, in particular, of semiconductor devices, usually a photolithographic step is employed in order to image structures defined on a mask onto a substrate comprising a radiation sensitive layer and, thereby, to expose the radiation sensitive layer. Here, a lower dimensional limit of the imaged structures (CD=critical dimension) is defined by the wavelength of the light used for the imaging. As the structures of the miniaturized devices to be manufactured are constantly decreasing, the wavelengths of the light to be used for the imaging must get increasingly shorter. However, for wavelengths below the ultraviolet region, optical imaging components and beam guidance or deflection components are difficult to handle and, so far, adequate technologies for such components have not been developed. Examples of optical illumination systems in the EUV region are known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,973,826, 6,033,079 and 6,142,641.
From ESRF, “Annual Report, 1995/1996:ID32” in http://www.esrf.fr/info/science/annrep/95-96/report/exp/id32/id32.htm (Jan. 29, 2001) an X-ray chopper is known for switching X-radiation through a switchable optical grating provided by surface waves (SAW=SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVES). However, in this known arrangement, a diffraction intensity of the SAW grating and thus an intensity of the switchable beam is too low for the surface wave device described therein to be economically employable in lithographic processes.